Lalley: Simple reforms may curb political sideshow

We’ve lived through plenty of big-time politics here in the Best Little City in America.

There also has been, perhaps, more than our fair share of oddities. To wit, a clip from my interview of Rep. Steve Hickey “100 Eyes” last month — where the controversial pastor used a colorful poop metaphor to explain homosexual relations ended up as the “Moment of Zen” on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

That sort of thing is going to happen from time to time. It was a flash-in-the pan media moment based on some unfortunate phrasing.

The circus sideshow that is the Annette Bosworth for Senate campaign is another level of oddity altogether and ultimately much more concerning.

Bosworth lost her bid for the Republican nomination in the primary election last week and was charged with several counts of election fraud the next day. The allegation is that the Sioux Falls doctor and Fox News favorite verified signatures on ballot petitions that she did not gather.

It’s a straightforward issue highlighted when Hickey unsuccessfully made the claim to a judge several weeks ago.

Bosworth held another of her wildly popular news conferences on Friday to reiterate her position that the whole thing is just evidence of Attorney General Marty Jackley’s personal and political vendetta against her.

NOTE: It’s a weird world, isn’t it?

At any rate, it’s a serious infraction and needs to be taken seriously, even if the candidate always was not.

Equally disturbing were parallel charges against an independent candidate, Clayton Walker. In Walker’s case, the attorney general says names were flat-out made up or forged. The petition list included people who could not have signed because they were dead.

In fact, Bosworth’s campaign holds Walker up as an example, saying they might have made some minor paperwork mistakes, but that guy, now that’s some election fraud over there.

It’s a specious suggestion, at the very least.

There’s no room for moral relativism in election law.

Which illustrates a key conundrum of a society dependent upon self-rule, as we profess to be.

If there’s a broader lesson from the still-evolving Bosworth for Senate experience, it is that she must be tolerated, even encouraged to reach for the gold ring of public office. Her campaign is vital to the process.

Yet her apparent flippant disregard for that process, her use of politically and emotionally charged language and her apparent willingness to not accept the electoral result demonstrates a disturbing disconnect with the responsibility of public life.

Beyond age and citizenship, there is no real test for candidate competency in our democracy.

That is as it should be.

Which is to say that everybody — Annette Bosworth, Skippy Blechinger and Pat O’Brien — should be able to run for public office.

But you have to follow the rules, few as they are.

And not just “kind of” follow the rules. Strict interpretation of the standards for ballot access, and their vigorous enforcement, are a pivotal element of maintaining the public’s faith in the results.

It’s not a joke.

It’s not a theory.

It’s not — though it might have seemed that way in recent weeks — performance art.

NOTE: There have been moments when I thought maybe the entire cast of the Bosworth campaign would, when it was all said and done, join hands in one long stage bow on Minnesota Avenue at rush hour, wave to the voters and walk off stage as the final frame in the greatest piece of contemporary theater in recent memory.

It’s hard not to think there’s a punch line to this whole thing.

I recently went on a prolonged rant during an episode of “100 Eyes” on the topic of the multitude of candidates who have forwarded themselves for our open seat in the U.S. Senate, once known as the nation’s Great Debating Society.

My suggestion being that maybe some folks should consider a run for the local school board or town council before inserting themselves directly into the front lines of power in this country.

You know, start small and build a public resumé.

I still believe that’s true, but it is, at its core, practical advice.

Bosworth had every right to run.

We in the media had an obligation to show up and relay, with a degree of news judgment applied, the substance and strategy of the proceedings.

Still, how the Bosworth campaign elevated itself as a national curiosity is beyond me. A medical degree does not a senator make.

Even as the legal question works its way through the courts, there are changes in law that should be considered.

The Hickey challenge of the Bosworth petitions highlighted one problem, the short timeline from the deadline for signatures to the printing of the ballot. The judge simply did not have time to figure out what was true.

Also, Secretary of State Jason Gant says he can’t legally initiate the examination of signatures.

That has to come from a complaint to the office, which is what happened in both the Bosworth and Walker cases.

The attorney general is then responsible for the investigation of alleged impropriety.

Jackley waited, appropriately, in the Bosworth case to announce the findings until after the election.

In short, if nobody brings it up, nobody really checks, and if someone does, nothing is going to happen until after the voting is done.

That’s an oversimplification, but the point is, we can do better.

Election law is historically controversial. Every time you go in and mess with the rules, one faction will think another faction is trying to take advantage.

But in this case, it seems like a few minor changes to the timeline would go a long way toward maintaining the credibility of the ballot.

South Dakota doesn’t have much in the way of power in the nation these days.

We do have two seats in the U.S. Senate.

The campaigns are a big deal.

Politics can be entertaining and occasionally odd.

The trick is to not let the sideshow take over the circus.

Patrick Lalley is managing editor of Argus Leader Media. Reach him at plalley@argusleader.com or 605-331-2291.